The Anniversary
by Satori Blackthorn
Summary: SerenaDarien September 20th it was never marked on the calendar, no circle and no red 'x', he needed no reminder, other than the empty feeling in his heart. Serena's going to find something out about Darien that will change the way she sees him forever.
1. Chapter 1

Title – The Anniversary

Category – Sailor Moon

Author – Satori Blackthorn

* * *

For my mom and dad, Happy 19th Anniversary! No, it's not happy – the story I mean – not yet anyway. This will be a two-parter, with the second instalment having a bit more of the fluffy stuff that we look so much forward to!

* * *

There was no red circle, or even a small 'x' in the center of the box, but this day was marked. He didn't need a reminder of what this day meant. He would never forget what September 20th meant – the day his life changed forever.

He would never forget the day, and what it represented, but he would never remember the event.

"What an ironic twist," Darien thought, staring at the calendar tacked unceremoniously next to the fridge. Today was the anniversary of the death of his parents. An event he would never remember and yet still never forget.

The dark-haired teen sighed and shrugged on his jacket, picking up the two red roses from where they had been placed carefully on the countertop. Locking the door behind him, he made his way to the cemetery, to once again pay his respects to his departed parents.

The day was cool, and a chill blew through his jacket and settled deep into his skin. Today was always like this. Unseasonably cool, with a persistent wind that made pedestrians pull their collars closer to their necks and rub their hands together, hoping to steal more heat from the friction it would produce.

* * *

Darien didn't bother with fastening his jacket or even putting his hands into his pockets. The chill he felt was an internal one – one that would only dissipate when night fell and this anniversary was finally over and he wouldn't have to deal with it for another 365 days. He made more of an effort to conceal the roses from the chill, afraid that the wind would cause them to wither, or for even a petal to fall. These were the most beautiful roses he could find; every year he scoured the city for the perfect specimens, and spared no expense in acquiring them for this day. He wouldn't conjure them, as he had always done it this way, it was the way it was going to stay.

He had many traditions for today. The fact that he never marked it on the calendar and that he always bought his memorial roses were the first two of many. He would always take the same route, from his apartment, passed the arcade, where Andrew would nod him a greeting as he went by, passed the school, through the park and passed the pond and then into the cemetery. Here he would spend an hour sitting and thinking, sometimes talking to the gravestones. At the end of the hour he would rise, lay the roses down and take the same route back home, pausing only to throw a coin into the pond. The rest of the day would be spent at home, not doing much of anything besides thinking about what his life would have been like. Andrew would show up in the early evening, make sure he had been fed and ask him if he wanted to hang out. Darien would always refuse and Andrew would sit with him for a little while before excusing himself to go and close up the arcade for the night.

Then the day was over; the next day Darien could go back to his regular life of work, making fun of Serena's meatballs and saving Sailor Moon from whatever demon that was attacking the city.

Had Darien not been so caught up in his inner ponderings he would have noticed that Andrew wasn't in the front window to nod his traditional annual nod his way. Today was not going to be traditional any bit in the slightest.

* * *

Inside the Crown Game Center, Andrew was fully aware what today was and what it meant for Darien but was otherwise occupied. As this year's September 20th fell on a Saturday, the arcade was virtually overflowing with kids of all ages. Including one of the arcade's most frequent visitors, a blonde teen with two meatball shaped buns on the top of her head.

"Andrew! Can I get another chocolate milkshake?" Serena asked, waving enthusiastically at the apron-wearing manager. Thinking he hadn't heard her requested she repeated it, "Andrew? Can I get another milkshake?"

Andrew was staring guiltily through the front windows, so lost in thought that he didn't notice that the cloth he was using to wipe up a spilt soda was actually the bottom of his apron. Serena followed his gaze to see another familiar figure making his way passed the huge slightly frosted windows. Her exuberant mood shattered as she recognized the dark-haired teen.

"Darien! I hope he doesn't come in here! I'd rather enjoy my milkshake in peace!" she said, crossing her arms as she glared at the walking figure, he, of course, not noticing her dangerous expression. "Why's he walking so funny?" she wondered belatedly.

"Don't worry Serena," came Andrew's distant voice, "he won't be coming in today."

"Good!" she chirped, happy that she was finally lucking out and would have a day free of the annoyance that was Darien.

Andrew smiled sadly, but still looked guilty about something. He looked away from the front window to regard the teenaged girl sitting in front of him, as if noticing her for the first time. "So what can I get you Serena?"

Contrary to popular belief, Serena wasn't as oblivious as Raye or Darien made her out to be. She noticed the strange, sad expression on the arcade owner's face and stared pointedly at him, her bright blue eyes searching his expression for something.

"Serena?"

"What's wrong Andrew, you look as if you lost your best friend."

Amazed at the younger girl's power of perception, or just her strangely accurate guessing skills, Andrew looked away. "Nothing's wrong," he answered.

"Something's up Andrew! Come on you can tell me!"

"It's not my place to tell… I just… I missed a friend this morning…"

Once again, Andrew was amazed by the blonde's power in logic.

"It has something to do with Darien walking so funny, doesn't it?"

Then again, he surmised, it's not like I have many more friends other than Darien… He winced as her words hit so close to home.

"Is something wrong?" A note of worry in her voice gave away something Andrew had known long ago.

"Why Serena? I never thought I'd see the day where you were actually concerned for Darien…"

Her eyes widened and despite himself, Andrew smirked. He would have had to be pretty daft to not see the attraction his two best friends had for each other, though they would never let that fact slip to the other. Instead of acting on their feelings, they disguised them beneath barbed retorts and scathing comments, sometimes in thrown projectiles, most of them coming from Serena and intended for a smirking Darien.

"I'm not worried about him!" she said quickly, "you look worried and I worry about you. Darien can go fall off a cliff for all I care about him…What? Did I say something?"

The look on Andrew's face now was worse than the one where he had been staring out the window at Darien. This one was pained, and his eyes held a sorrow for his friend that Serena had never seen before. She had never realized that the two of them were so close… "Andrew? What's going on… You're scaring me…"

"Alright Serena, I'll tell you what's going on, but that's only so you stop asking questions and don't say something in front of Darien that would cause the both of you more grief than you want to deal with. Darien confided this with me a long time ago because I was his best friend and he needed someone to talk to who wasn't a shrink." Andrew took a deep breath and looked past Serena for a second before continuing, trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing in telling her this. Looking down at her troubled eyes, filled with guilt at the thought that she caused, or would cause either of them pain, he knew he had to tell the truth.

"Alright… Today's September 20th, and every year on this day Darien visits his parents' gravestones with two roses… It's the same thing every year. He gets up, stares at the calendar for a few hours, gets dressed, walks to the cemetery, visits the graves and places his flowers. Then he goes home and I check in on him later, to make sure he's still somewhat okay… The next day it's like nothing happened, he goes about his regular life, until next year…"

"So his parents…"

"They died in a car crash when their car fell off a cliff, today's the anniversary of their death."

He could hear a sharp intake of breath as he told her how Darien's mother and father had died and he knew she genuinely felt bad about her earlier comment, at this he had to smile. He couldn't understand why they gave each other such a hard time… She obviously cared about him and felt guilty about wishing he would, as she so eloquently put it – fall off a cliff. And Darien would never do anything more than tease her about her marks, eating habits and her strange hairstyle. Andrew wondered if the two of them would ever resolve things between them.

When she didn't say anything further, Andrew took that as his cue to continue on, "Every year I nod to him as he passes, but he was early this year and I missed him, things were so busy here I didn't notice him go by until it was too late." Andrew hung his head, knowing somehow that him missing their September 20th morning ritual would somehow have repercussions later on. He would make sure that he was there for him when he was on his was back from his parent's headstones. Later on, near dinnertime, he would even bring Darien something decent to eat, instead of him assuming his friend had eaten or cooking up a batch of instant noodles to leave for him to eat as he left.

With that resolved he raised his head to see what had Serena so deep in thought.

"Serena?"

Well, that answered his question… Serena wasn't deep in thought - she had disappeared…

* * *

To be continued...

Reviews are welcome...!


	2. Chapter 2

**Title –** _The Anniversary_

**Category –** _Sailor Moon_

**Author –** _Satori Blackthorn

* * *

_

Part Two

Already out the door and down the street in front of the arcade, Serena hadn't heard Andrew when he called out her name. She knew she had to get out of there, to go and see him, see Darien and make up for the things she had said. He might not have been there when she had said them, but she felt the need to apologize all the same. She'd had him all wrong – and for some reason that didn't sit right with her.

She hurried down the street, pigtails streaming out behind her as she continued in her self-pity. Not really knowing what cemetery it was that Darien was heading to, she continued going straight, hoping she was going in the right direction. If he wasn't at the cemetery she thought he was at… she could be looking all day.

Her thoughts continued racing in circles, about all of the horrible things she had ever screamed at him, the muttered retorts she had shot at him behind his back when he made fun of her dismal marks and just everything else in general. Who was she to judge him? Really? She spewed off all these ideals, and yet she called him a jerk without knowing more about him.

'But if it hadn't been for Andrew you wouldn't have known. Darien would never have told you,' a voice in her head said silkily.

'What does that have anything to do with it?' she asked back. 'I still shouldn't have judged him so harshly.'

'What has he ever done for you?'

'He hasn't done anything… too… horrible.'

'True, he only calls you names and insults the way you look on a regular basis, not to mention how he embarrasses you in public.'

'But most of the time I run into him and knock him over so-' Serena paused with a start. 'I'm defending him? Since when have I done that?'

The evil voice in her head had nothing more to say, and Serena wondered if all it wanted to accomplish was for her to be even more confused.

'I don't care about the guy,' she mused, her pace now slowed by her pondering. 'I'm just going to apologize for having the wrong idea about him. That's it. That's all I'm going to say. I'll be out of there before he starts calling me names, if he even bothers to today that is…'

The thought that Darien might even be too distraught to call her Meatball Head was so upsetting that she picked up the pace once again. 'He can't be that bad off…' she tried to convince herself. 'And it's not like I really care anyway… this is just about me solving things for my own benefit… so I feel better about myself…"

So that's how it came to be that a blonde teen with two strange buns on the top of her head was running full speed down the street, a look of determination on her face so strong and fierce that anyone who saw her would swear she was about to confront some evil demon.

* * *

This visit was strange somehow, Darien realized as he sat leaning against a tree in front of his parents' headstones, holding the roses in front of his face. Something seemed terribly off, and he could find no answer as to why that was. A chill had long since settled into his skin from sitting on the damp earth for so long without moving and his left leg was asleep from the position he had taken when he had fallen heavily to his yearly post.

The feelings were familiar, both the chill and the pins and needles feeling that was spreading up his leg. Everything looked the same, he had already cleaned the refuse from the marble pieces of rock and they sat there immobile, looking the same as they had every year. He wondered if this feeling of unease was because he hadn't seen Andrew on his way passed the arcade. Was that the reason for him feeling so jumpy?

"Mother, Father," he said, looking sadly back to their silent gravestones. "I wish you could see me now." As always, he liked to brief his parents about the year that had gone by, just so he could imagine them keeping up to date on his life. That wasn't to say that he thought they weren't watching over him, it was just that he liked to think that they'd like to hear it straight from him. There was never anyone around on his visits, if there was anyone even in the cemetery they were usually so far away that Darien never had to worry about being overheard. "I'm making a difference… Not a huge one I'll admit… But one that I'm proud of.

"I'm a hero, Mom. I save people from monsters and demons. There's not a lot of recognition in it for me, seeing as how I go around wearing a mask and cape all the time. But it's still something… Job wise, I'm still working at the agency, but I think that a break will come through for me soon… But I don't want to leave here before all this evil business is done with – I don't want to imagine all the trouble the girls would get into if I weren't there to bail them out in the nick of time. Their leader gets in enough trouble to keep the whole team hopping, if you can imagine that, Dad… Go figure I seem drawn to her most of all… I know exactly when she's in trouble… It's gotten me into a few close shaves, more than a few times, but together we've pulled through. They don't know who I am though… And I don't have any clue as to who the group could be. You'd think it wouldn't be hard for a person to figure out, since the group of them are so… distinct. It's for the better… The whole secret identities thing… even if it gets a little tedious at times.

"Outside of saving the world, I get along okay. Andrew and I are still really close, he checks up on me so often it's like he's my older brother. He makes sure I eat right and encourages me to get out more. He's got a girlfriend now; a girl named Rita who is studying insects and the like. He's really hung up over her too, so I hope they get through her moving abroad.

"As for me… There isn't anything really definite. There's this one girl named Raye who has a crazy infatuation with me. She's a great girl, but we don't really click, you know? We've hung out a few times, but nothing other than getting milkshakes and looking through a few museums. I hope she finds a guy who can love her like she deserves, since I can't seem to.

"Then there's this other girl… She's a bit of a… I don't even know how to describe her. We always fight and she always seems to be insulting me somehow. Whenever I'm around her I can't seem to keep my mouth shut… I call her names, say the meanest things… It's not me, and yet I can't seem to stop myself. Strange thing for me, the one who's always able to control his feelings, the ever- impassive Darien… I can't control myself around a single fifteen-year-old girl… Serena's so… she's… Irrepressible… I guess that would be the best word to describe her. No matter what's going on, she's always smiling. She's not the brightest girl, and she's as clumsy as an ox in a china shop, but there's something about her… I find myself drawn to her. I want her to be around. How does that work I wonder? She hates me so much that she insults me whenever the opportunity strikes and still I can't seem to walk away… It's not like I like her or anything…" he said defensively, realizing how his last words sounded, then hung his head as he also realised that lying to his parents wasn't something he wanted to start doing now.

"Alright. I don't exactly hate her… But I can't really do anything if she despises the ground I walk on. I guess I keep hoping someday that things will change…"

Darien stopped in his narrative when he heard something that sounded like footsteps coming from the path behind him. His body tensed he turned – after battling the Nega-verse for so long, he had learned they had no sense of respect for sites of the dead, they wouldn't care if their battlefield was a church, they'd desecrate the most holy of places in their search for energy. Turning slowly in the direction of the noise, he relaxed a fraction of his nervous anticipation when he saw that it wasn't the Nega-verse sneaking up behind him… In fact, it was something completely opposite, and completely unexpected.

"Serena?" Darien managed when his voice was working properly again. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey Darien…" she answered, fidgeting where she stood a few feet away. "I came to… apologize."

Darien looked at the younger girl, a frown of confusion marring his otherwise flawless features. She didn't look at him directly, rather kept her gaze on the headstones before him, and the two red roses he still held in his hand.

"Apologize?" he said finally, when the silence between them became too unbearable. "What do you have to apologize for?" his voice was incredulous. As far as he was concerned there was nothing she'd ever have to apologize for.

"This morning I… said some things that I had no right in saying… I didn't know about your… parents…" she retuned her gaze to the sombre pieces of rock before them. Gaining strength from somewhere inside, she slowly lifted her eyes to his own. "I'm sorry," she said with honest sincerity. "I had no idea what this day meant to you and I said some stupid things I didn't mean…"

Darien didn't know what to say in response to her heartfelt apology. He didn't even know what she was talking about and yet she had ran all the way here – if the red flush on her face was any indication – halfway across town, just to say she was sorry.

"I don't know what to say…" he responded honestly. At her crestfallen look, Darien realized that might not have come out the way he had intended it to. "I mean, it's okay. You didn't know."

There was another bout of uncomfortable silence between the two of them, this time, however, it was Serena who spoke first.

"Do you… miss them?" she asked, walking a little closer to where he still sat and plopped down, semi-gracefully, beside him. Surprised at her move, Darien covered it by looking at his parents' headstones in contemplation.

"I don't remember them, when I woke up from the crash, I had amnesia… So I don't miss them… It's hard, when I didn't know them…" he paused trying to gather his thoughts. Glancing down at the blond beside him he saw that she was actually listening, taking in his words and waiting patiently for him to continue. He realized belatedly that the last person he had opened up to like this was Andrew, all those years ago… What was it about this beautiful girl beside him that changed him so?

"I think sometimes about how it would have been to grow up with them beside me. Teaching me, guiding me… I miss that… if you can miss something you don't remember having… It's hard to explain," he ended lamely, gesturing helplessly with one hand.

Serena was silent, contemplating for a moment and then looked up at him with compassion reflecting in her eyes. Before he could stop himself he found himself lost in their sapphire depths, wondering how they could be so expressive, how they could possibly show all the emotion she felt, so effortlessly. Darien was thrown from his contemplation when she started to speak.

"I won't say that I understand how you feel, because I can't." Darien hadn't been expecting that, but she continued before he had time to sort out a response. "My parents have always been there for me, granted there are times where I sometimes wish they would disappear, I can't imagine having lived without them… It must have been really hard for you… still must be after all these years…"

"The pain is still there," he replied truthfully. "But it gets easier, even if the pain never truly goes away."

"So you… talk to them?" she asked nervously. Darien nodded. "What do you tell them?"

"Things… Life…" he replied vaguely, realizing as he answered that he had been talking about her only moments before.

Serena seemed to pick up on the fact that he didn't want to go further into detail about their talks and returned her gaze to the roses he held, now on his lap. A small smile made its presence known on her face.

"Those are beautiful."

He nodded again, and then inexplicably felt the need to explain the reasoning behind them.

"Every year I buy two roses, the most beautiful roses in the city, and place them here in memory of my parents, it's a tradition."

Before he could stop himself he found he was telling her everything. All the traditions of this dreaded day. The story of the roses, the ritualistic nod to Andrew, the route to the cemetery, their talks… Everything. It was like a floodgate letting loose and he was powerless to stop it.

Surprisingly, Serena took it all in stride, nodding in understanding and smiling quietly when the time called for it. He had never known her to be a good listener – Poor Amy had the hardest time getting her to study for her exams – but it seemed she had amazed him yet again that day.

When he was finished he leaned back against the tree and stared at the sky. Serena took a moment to process everything she had been told and then leaned back and stared upwards as well.

"I'm sorry."

Quicker than he ever thought possible; Darien found his head snapping back down to look at her in disbelief.

"What are you apologizing for now?"

Serena smiled back up at him, then swivelled her gaze around them, at the surrounding cemetery.

"I've ruined your day for you."

"No, you haven't," he replied quickly.

"No where in all those traditions did you ever mention having someone here with you while you visited your parents. It was my fault that you missed Andrew this morning… And I've probably thrown off all your plans for this evening too." The look on her face was so apologetic that Darien knew she truly believed that she had ruined his day.

"Serena… you really are a Meatball head…" he laughed quietly. Using the tree behind him as support, he pushed himself up so that he was standing before her. As soon as he was balanced, and his leg was awake enough to take his weight, he held a hand out to the girl still sitting, completely baffled, on the ground beside his parents' graves. She took it, unconsciously, and Darien was amazed at how well her hand fit into his, not to mention how familiar and… right… it felt.

"Serena, there is no way you could ruin this day… No matter what you could have only made this day better for me. It's about time I stop letting the memory of this day control me…"

He placed the roses on the cold ground, one in front of each of their names. He bowed his head for a moment of prayer and a quick, sidelong look at Serena told him that he was doing the same.

When he was done he raised his head and spoke to their headstones for the last time that day. "I'll be back next year, Mom, Dad… And maybe next year I'll bring a friend with me."

He looked back at Serena. She smiled back at him and her hand squeezed his in agreement.

"I think it's about time I start breaking with tradition anyway…"

* * *

End!

See! I told you there would be some fluff! If you want more (not in this story, this one is done) say so in a review and I'll see what I can do. I'm heading back in the direction of my Power Rangers fics, but don't think for a second that the Sailor Moon fluff with stop coming!

Till next time, fellow fluff-lovers!

I am,

Satori Blackthorn


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